Subscribe now and receive weekly newsletters with educational materials, new courses, interesting posts, popular books, and much more!
Great Contemporaries
Great Contemporaries: George Marshall and America at War (2)
05
Jan
2024
1
By RAYMOND A. CALLAHAN
Despite sharp wartime differences, the British never forgot George Marshall. At the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, as he entered Westminster Abbey representing the United States, the vast congregation stood as a mark of respect. When he was hospitalized and dying in 1959, Churchill (by then “Sir Winston”), on a visit to Washington, accompanied President Eisenhower to see him. He left Walter Reed Medical Center with tears in his eyes.
Great Contemporaries: The Three Lives of Churchill’s Hitler Essays
03
Jan
2024
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Did Churchill ever admire Hitler? The question, ridiculous on its face, is frequently asked. Critics have long quoted selectively from Churchill to show he was “for Hitler before he was against him.” In fact, Churchill never deviated in his view of Hitler, who was himself so infuriated that he lodged a diplomatic protest against Churchill’s “personal attack.”
Great Contemporaries: Marshall, “The American Carnot” (1)
15
Dec
2023
By RAYMOND A. CALLAHAN
Marshall’s role is usually discussed now in terms of his contributions to Anglo-American strategy. His clashes with Churchill and his formidable Chief of Imperial General Staff General Sir Alan Brooke well known. But the skill with which he built a small, somewhat obsolescent force into a mighty army was staggering. He selected and promoted its leaders, oversaw its organization and training, secured its equipment, worked with industry, and managed relations with the President, Congress and a public anxious about “their boys.”
Churchill and the Presidents: Harry S. Truman (2): Postwar Shadows
04
Sep
2023
By FRED GLUECKSTEIN
“Your great country and mine are founded on the fact that the people have the right to express themselves on their leaders, no matter what the crisis.... We are in the midst of grave and trying times. You can look with satisfaction upon your great contribution to the overthrow of Nazism & Fascism in the world. ‘Communism’ so called, is our next great problem. I hope we can solve it without the 'blood and tears' the other two cost. May God bless and protect you.” — Harry Truman to WSC, July 1948.
Great Contemporaries: Harry S. Truman (1): Prelude to Potsdam
17
Aug
2023
By FRED GLUECKSTEIN
Churchill on Truman: “He takes no notice of delicate ground, he just plants his foot down firmly upon it.” Truman on Churchill: “I am sure we can get along if he doesn’t try to give me too much soft soap. You know soft soap is made of ash hopper lye and it burns to beat hell when it gets into the eyes.”
Reporting Churchills: Henry Lucy on Winston and Lord Randolph
31
Jul
2023
By DAVE TURRELL
Winston “was evidently fully supplied with notes,” Lucy wrote, “but he did not use his manuscript for the purpose of reading a single sentence...a debater who will have to be reckoned with whatever Government is in office. Probably a ministry composed of his own political friends have most to apprehend.” The last sentence is telling. It was obvious that Winston was his father’s son—a political disrupter by nature.
Churchill’s Descriptive Power: The River War and Herbert Kitchener
13
Jul
2023
By ALAN STRAUS-SCHOM
Churchill deftly describes Herbert Kitchener, Sirdar of the Anglo-Egyptian Army, with whom he would have more encounters in a greater war to come. No detail escapes his gaze. Kitchener inspected everything from machine shops to transport to cooking arrangements, even verifying the quality of grain, clothing, and food. Churchill at this time sees Kitchener as “ungracious”: cold and aloof, incapable of any human warmth. Later, in the First World War, he was more magnanimous.
Michael Collins: “Tell Winston we could never have done anything without him”
29
Jun
2023
By MICHAEL McMENAMIN
The “common understanding” between Churchill and Collins was the Irish Free State as a free, self-governing Dominion, the same as Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Against them were arrayed the Conservative Party “die-hards,” Sir Henry Wilson and Andrew Bonar Law, and the anti-Treaty IRA hard-liners. Eamon de Valera exhorted the latter to wade through “the blood of some of the members of the Government.”
Great Contemporaries: John Morley, Giant of Old
18
May
2023
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
“Present party designations have become empty of all contents... Vastly extended State expenditure, vastly increased demands from the taxpayer who has to provide the money, social reform regardless of expense, cash exacted from the taxpayer already at his wits’ end—when were the problems of plus and minus more desperate?... We can only trust to the growth of responsibility; we may look to circumstances and events to teach their lesson.” —John Morley
Great Contemporaries: Sir Robert Vidal Rhodes James, 1933-1999
18
Apr
2023
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Though his best-known work was Churchill: A Study in Failure,” Robert was an admirer who had hoped to write a sequel, "Churchill: A Study in Success." His eight volumes of Churchill’s speeches are simply indispensable. True, he was a curmudgeon, but also a grand raconteur, full of stories about Churchill and Parliament. Our colleague Paul Addison remembered “what fun he was to be with. Such a warm and generous character, sparkling with gossip and full of enthusiasms.”
Great Contemporaries: Asquith: The Last Victorian Liberal (2)
06
Mar
2023
By RAYMOND A. CALLAHAN
“Asquith fell when the enormous task was but half completed. He fell with dignity. He bore adversity with composure. In or out of power, disinterested patriotism and inflexible integrity were his only guides. Let it never be forgotten that he was always on his country's side in all her perils, and that he never hesitated to sacrifice his personal or political interests to the national cause.” —Churchill
Great Contemporaries: Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound
02
Mar
2023
By ROBIN BRODHURST
Churchill and Pound were vividly contrasting types, but in the emergency of a world war they fitted together. Each recognised the strengths and weaknesses of the other. Churchill famously wrote that he felt he was walking with destiny. It was equally true to say of Pound: “He is not a Roosevelt figure; rather he is like Truman, and like Truman, he stayed in the kitchen and he took the heat.”